


Concerning Mature Internship Programs

by raindropsky



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Not Hockey Player(s), Fluff, M/M, Mistaken Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 16:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13721892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raindropsky/pseuds/raindropsky
Summary: “Seriously, why we going to the baby labs,” Geno grumbles as he’s hustled into an elevator by Flower and Tanger. They keep sniggering and typing rapidly on their phones.“There’s a newmatureintern.” Tanger sing-songs. “You should go say hi. You know, do your ‘welcome to the company, we believe in your baby brains’ speech.”Geno frowns. “Doesn’t new intern batch start next week?” He swears he remembers Dana telling him to make sure he keeps next Monday morning free so he can greet the newest cohort and to not be late.“There’s a super eager beaver apparently,” Flower smirks.





	Concerning Mature Internship Programs

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for and inspired by the mistaken intern!AU prompts by [nomorelonelydays](http://nomorelonelydays.tumblr.com/) and her anons.

Christian dashes out of the elevator towards his desk. “Come on, I know I left you here somewhere,” he mutters as he pats down his his desk and rustles through a drawer. “Aha!” He triumphantly pulls out his spare (well now, only) phone charging cable and plugs in his phone. “There there, welcome back to the real world,” he coos at his finally cheerily glowing phone screen. Honestly, if it hadn’t been storming last night, he would’ve taken the two-hour commute back into town just so he wouldn’t be stuck with a dead phone. He gives his phone a fond pat and nearly screams when he straightens up from his desk.

“Jesus, who are you? How did you get into this lab?”

There’s an attractive stocky dark haired stranger peering at one of the many whiteboards scattered around the lab. The one he’s inspecting bears the remnants of yesterday’s feature brainstorming session by Christian’s pod. He clears his throat.

“Sorry, I’m here for Dana? I’m supposed to meet with him but he just texted me that there’s an emergency so he’s running late.” Christian stares at him. The stranger frowns a little. “Uh, I mean Mr. Heinze? Dana Heinze?”

Christian’s shoulders relax a little. Mr. Heinze - or Dana as he prefers to be called - is the manager of the level twenty-five labs. His eyes narrow as his suspicion returns. “But how did you get access to this floor? Access is restricted to employees only.” _Oh shit, is this guy a corporate spy?_ He had always thought Fleury and Letang were kidding with their ominous warnings of security breaches and corporate espionage. Oh God, what is he supposed to do? Can he discreetly call for security? What’s their extension again?

“–pass. Uh, hi?” His racing thoughts are rudely interrupted.

Christian shakes his head. “Sorry, I missed that?” He sidles closer towards his desk phone.

The other man smiles hesitantly. “Oh, I was just saying that my card has access to this floor.” He walks over to Christian and pauses before taking his hand out of his pocket and extending it. “Do you want to see it?”

Christian takes it and can’t muffle his snort in time. The other man laughs ruefully.

“It’s okay, I know what it looks like. Flower was my photographer and refused to let me take another photo. The security team is also supposedly adamant that you only get one shot at your ID picture.”

 _SIDNEY C._  is stamped underneath one of the most unflattering ID photos Christian has ever seen. Sidney looks like he was caught between a sneeze and a laugh with his eyes squinched and mouth hanging open, his face partially turned away. His shoulders are hunched and there’s no neck to be seen. It also looks like someone tried to scribble some scruff onto Sidney’s cheeks which someone else - most likely Sidney - had only partially succeeded in scratching off.

“It’s definitely up there,” Christian chuckles as he hands back Sidney’s ID pass. “Who’s Flower? During my cohort’s turn for photos, Letang scared a couple of us into ugly photos and refused to let anyone retake theirs.”  _Sidney must work here,_ he reasons to himself.  _No spy would take such a terrible photo._  It definitely looks like the result of some unfortunate CM interference.

“Ah… I mean Fleury? Marc-André Fleury? He’s with the business development team.” Sidney smiles.  _He really does have a nice smile,_ Christian muses. He looks up as the elevator pings and a few of Christian’s fellow interns roll into the office, ready to start the day.

“Hey, I’ll let you get to work. I’ll wait for Dana, uh, Mr. Heinze, in his office. I just had a few questions about the internship programs here.” Sidney turns.

 _Oh well, hell-o._ While that awful ID photo might trick someone into thinking Sidney is part troll, there’s no way that magnificent ass could ever lie.

“What’s this about internship programs?” Kathleen, another intern from the cohort after him, butts into the conversation. She gives Sidney a quick lookover. “Oh are, you part of the new intern program? The ‘mature’ internship one?” She adds a little emphasis on “mature” and raises an eyebrow as she sips from her travel mug.

Sidney turns pink. “Um,” he starts.

Oh.  _Oh._  Christian thinks. He looks at the date and does a few calculations. It makes sense, they’re pretty much at the quarterly 3-month mark where a new cohort of interns is introduced to the level twenty-five labs. He doesn’t like the judgemental gleam in Kathleen’s eyes and how Sidney is shuffling awkwardly. He feels bad for this cute guy with an amazing ass who’s what, maybe in his late twenties? Early thirties? It sucks having to being a lowly intern let alone being one at Sidney’s age. At least they pay the interns well at Malkin & Malkin. He narrows his eyes at Kathleen. Well his recent progress report said that he had “strong leadership potential” and that his supervisors were “looking forward to him taking more initiative.” Rah rah.

He takes a deep breath. “Welcome to the level twenty-five labs, also known affectionately as The Incubator! This is where all us interns live.” He gestures at the growing crowd of interns. “Sidney, these are the people you’ll be spending all of your foreseeable future with. We mean that literally as we have a buddy system in place for everyone’s safety.” Everyone nods, some more frantically than others but all with a serious face.

Sidney looks over at him. “I’m not a… Wait, a buddy system?”

Christian nods. The newbies almost always disregard the warnings and end up learning the hard way. But hey, good karma for trying to warn them right? “Yeah, it’s to deal with the CM. There’s safety in numbers and ideally, better for retaliation.”

“See Em?” Sidney looks confused.

“Does anyone have the newbie introduction slideshow? Anyone?” Christian snaps his fingers.

“On it!” Patricia pipes up. The tiny redhead taps on her laptop before connecting it to a projector. “Here we are– oh damn, can someone flip the board for me?”

Two pictures of smiling dark haired men are projected onto a whiteboard unfortunately covered in red and blue scribbles. The man on the left looks like he has a dangling blue booger miraculously shaped like a mathematical equation. A few people flip the board but the other side is even more densely covered.

Sidney lets out a choked noise.

“Where are the erasers?” Someone asks.

“The CM stole them all.” Another person replies glumly.

A mixture of sighs and grumbles rise.

“Flip the board back over, we’ll make do.” Patricia orders as she tries to wipe the board clean with some tissue.

“You okay, do you need some water?” Christian asks a flushed Sidney.

“I’m fine.” He clears his throat and crosses his arms.

Christian eyes him but carries on. “Meet the CM. The letters stands for Canadian Menaces,” he explains. Sidney stares straight at the pictures for a few beats before lifting up a curled fist to rests his lips on and exhaling slowly. He looks awfully intent on memorizing the photos.

 _Maybe we’ll have our first newbie who listens from the get go,_  Christian thinks to himself.

“The one on the left with the questionable facial hair is Marc-André Fleury. He is the king of the Canadian Menaces. I think you already met him, right?”

Sid nods stiffly.

“He’s the worst of the CM. He plays the long game - like see how all the dry erasers are missing for the entire floor? That’s Fleury.” Christian explains grimly. “He likes to trick you into complacency then launch these sneak attacks that you don’t notice until it’s too late. It always starts out small but it’s guaranteed to drive you crazy. We haven’t had dry erasers for nearly a week.” He sighs. “He also really likes water bombs.”

He points to the other image. “That’s Kristopher Letang. Don’t let his good looks fool you, he is also a dangerous CM. Nerf guns are one of his favoured vices and he also really likes–”

“Oh, this looks cute.” An accented voice chirps from behind.

There’s a cacophony of noise. Poor Patricia screams and slams her laptop shut, nearly knocking it off her desk. Arms are flailing, toes are being run over by chairs, a few cups are nearly knocked over and there’s more wailing as interns dive trying to save their own electronics and notes.

“No, no, don’t stop this on my behalf, this looks like so much fun.” Letang leans casually against a desk, surveying the chaos from the back of the scrambling group. “I feel honoured to have a presentation about me.” He strides forward with a big grin. “Is this a new thing? Is this what you naughty interns get up to without adult supervision? I’m going to have to report this– Wait, what, Sid?” Letang does a double-take and stares at their newest team member.

Sidney gives a little wave. “Hey?”

Patricia gently tugs his hand down.

“Don’t do that,” she whispers kindly. “You want to be unnoticed by the CM.”

Christian is very wary of what can only be demonic glee colouring Letang’s eyes.  _The things I do,_ he thinks as he steps in front of Sidney. _Universe, I hope you’re taking note and seeing what a good person I am._  “No,” he says firmly. “Sidney is a nice man and our newest mature intern. He deserves at least a week’s grace period.”

“Mature– Mature intern?!” Letang squawks. He’s turning a dull red - probably because Christian straight up called out Letang on his evil ways.

“Thank you but I really think–” Sidney starts.

“One. Week.” Christian interrupts.

Letang just stares at poor Sidney. Oh God, is he turning on the Canadian murder eyes? Christian opens his mouth to protest when Letang suddenly smiles.

“Change of plan,” he calls out cheerfully as he whips out his phone. “Smile!” He snaps a few rapid fire shots and his thumbs start flying on the screen. “Looks like I actually have some important calls to make so you’re safe today children!” Sid’s phone pings as Letang jogs back towards the elevators.

“Why are there photocopies of butts on the back of my reports?!” Someone shrills by the photocopier. Evil laughter is cut off as the elevator doors close.

Christian sighs. “See? Canadian Menaces. There are a few more of them but I’m going to see if we can get this butt problem fixed first.” Sidney trails after him. “The CM claim they’re stimulating creativity and training us interns to be adaptable? Even though we’re here to innovate and build cutting edge tech here at Malkin & Malkin, I still feel like that’s a pretty flimsy excuse,” Christian sighs as he stands by the photocopier. Turns out it’s Henry from his cohort who’s flipping through his printed pages with bafflement.

“Okay, yep, those are most definitely butt prints,” he whistles as he snags a few sheets from Henry. “Did you check the inside of the copier, Henry?”

“I did, but there isn’t anything taped to the glass or top,” Henry frets. “I tried reprinting it again but everything still comes out with butt prints. Felix tried printing something from his computer but he got the same result.”

Sidney clears his throat. “Try checking the paper trays. The paper has probably been swapped out with preprinted paper.”

Henry pulls open the tray and checks a few sheets. “Oh my God, you’re a lifesaver,” he hugs a startled Sidney.  

“Check the rest of the trays. Flip through all the pages as there might still be some prints hidden among the stack, even if the top few pieces of paper look clean.” Sidney shrugs when the other two stare at him. “I’ve had a similar prank pulled on me before.”

Henry puts a hand on Sidney’s shoulder. “We understand your suffering.” He says solemnly.

Sidney coughs. “Ah, don’t these pranks get annoying? You could tell HR you know.” _You looks so concerned, you sweet innocent man,_ Christian thinks.

“Well Letang claims he’s teaching us adaptability while Fleury claims he’s helping us improve our focus,” Henry sighs. “A group of us did go up to HR to discuss our concerns and Ms. Larosee–” Sidney chokes. “Ms. Larosee was very polite when we voiced our concerns and said she would bring them up with upper management.”

Henry looks about furtively and leans in and continues in a lower tone, “So I don’t want to sound racist just because she’s Canadian and she has a French name but, uh, I swear I heard cackling once we left the HR department? I think Ms. Larosee and the entire HR department are in completely in cahoots with the Canadian Menaces.” Sidney’s shoulders are shaking.

“But don’t worry!” Henry is a bit flustered over having potentially broken a new fellow intern. “We have full permission from the big big boss, Mr. Malkin, to retaliate as we wish and are allowed to use company resources. We’ve even gotten them good a couple times. Like that time when we built little bots that followed their assigned Canadian Menaces and would randomly stop in front of them and trip them.” He sighs happily at the memory.

“We have copies of the security footage,” Christian adds.

Sidney laughs loudly as he glances down at the ruined report in his hand. He pauses and looks up, a furrow in his brow. “Henry, right? What’s your report for if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh!” Henry leans over. “It’s a proposal for a new feature that me and my pod have been brainstorming and drafting out for the past couple of weeks. We’re really excited about. It’s for my supervisor to read and ideally approve.”

“Oh.” Sidney reads some more and glances back at Henry. “Do you mind a little feedback?”

“Go for it. I hate writing reports and I only got stuck writing the because I lost at rock paper scissors with the rest of my pod.” He shrugs. “We all hate writing.”

“Good on you for taking one for the team.” Sidney smiles. “Okay, so see your introduction? You don’t need it to be so long - you’re pretty vague and don’t clearly state what it is you’re building…”

 

\-------------

 

“Seriously, why we going to the baby labs,” Geno grumbles as he’s hustled into an elevator by Flower and Tanger. They keep sniggering and typing rapidly on their phones.

“There’s a new  _mature_  intern.” Tanger sing-songs. “You should go say hi. You know, do your ‘welcome to the company, we believe in your baby talent’ speech.”

Geno frowns. “Doesn’t new intern batch start next week?” He swears he remembers Dana telling him to make sure he keeps next Monday morning free so he can greet the newest cohort and to not be late.

“There’s a super eager beaver apparently,” Flower smirks.

“You guys so weird.” Geno sighs as the elevator doors open. Flower and Tanger immediately start hopping around, craning their necks as they’re apparently extremely invested in this new mysterious intern.

“Mr. Malkin!” A young woman gasps.

Geno smiles. “Hi, I hear there’s a new intern?”

“Oh.” The smile on her face drops before she rallies again. “I think he’s busy at the moment but can I get you coffee? Tea?” She’s looking up at him with big eyes and getting closer with each word. “I’m Kathleen, we were in the elevator together a couple weeks ago and you saved me when I forgot my pass?”

“No I’m okay thanks, I already had coffee.” Geno is rescued from a hungry intern when Tanger grabs his arm.

“Found him!” He says brightly. “Come, come.” Tanger drags him across the room, cheerfully bulldozing his way through interns who are scrambling out of their way when they see who’s coming.

_“They’re back! Quick pass it on, CM invasion alert!”_

_“Wait the big boss is here, are we safe or are we in for a massacre?”_

Geno can hear the whispers being passed down but before he can reassure the babies that no, no one is going to be killed, he is planted in front of a small group of interns. One of them has a very familiar head of dark curls and is wearing a suit he saw laid out this morning. He definitely knows that ass that’s sticking out and leaning over someone’s chair as its owner explains something on the computer screen.  _Now if it was bent over a bit more…_  He coughs and readjusts himself. He’s Evgeni Malkin, CTO of Malkin & Malkin, in a room full of baby engineers. He is not popping a boner in front of them. He scowls when he sees another baby engineer who is also admiring the same glorious ass.

“Sid? Baby, what are you doing here?” Geno steps forward and places a kiss on the top of his husband’s head, his hand sitting low on the small of Sidney’s back.

“Zhenya? What are you doing here?” Sid looks up at him with a surprised smile. He happily steps into Geno’s open arms. Fierce whispers explode around them.

“Sidney, but what about if I use– ow, stop kicking me Christian!” Henry scowls and looks over his shoulder at where Christian is staring. He jerks back and almost falls out of his chair. “Oh hi Mr. Malkin!” Shut up, his voice doesn’t crack.

“Hi,” Mr. Malkin smiles. “I heard there is a new intern?” He’s cuddling Sid. What on earth is going on?

The lab is silent. Sidney coughs. Flower is narrating quietly in French while Tanger films everything on his phone.

“Sid…ney is the new intern?” Thank God Henry takes one for the team and voices what is quickly becoming clearly Not True.

“Sid? You coming to work for me now?” Geno beams down at his husband in bemusement. “Can have a lot more fun on the executive floor.” He leers shamelessly at his blushing husband.

“Uh, there was a misunderstanding that I am supposed to be a mature intern?” He winces. “I came in to talk to Dana but things kind of steamrolled from there.”

“You're my husband. Why anyone think you’re an intern?” Geno asks.

All eyes swivel towards Christian.

“You said you were here to discuss interning here with Dana! You said so!” Christian says shrilly.  _You_ lied _to me, oh my God, am I going to get fired, oh my GOD I was_ checking out _my boss’ boss’ boss’ **BIG BOSS’ HUSBAND’S ASS**  OH MY GOD PLEASE DON'T LET MR. MALKIN EVER FIND OUT._

Sidney winces. “I meant I was here to talk to Dana about how the internship programs are being run here and if he had any tips or advice for me,” he apologizes. “We want to expand our internship programs. I’m an architect,” he tacks on as if that helps make this shit show disappear.

“Sid designed our building!” Geno shares proudly. “He’s a partner over at Lemieux & Crosby. Best architecture firm in Pittsburgh.” He hugs Sid again as he can’t contain his pride.

“You’re not one of us?” Henry asks forlornly.

“We really like you,” Patricia adds.

Sidney shoves his hands into his pockets bashfully. “Thanks, you guys are a group of really talented individuals.” He looks up at Geno. “I hope to see you all transition into full-time roles.”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m here, my kid’s sick.” Dana bustles onto the floor. He looks at the odd cluster of people. “Hey Geno, what’re you doing down here?” He nods at Sid. “Sorry I’m late, ready for our meeting?”

Sid stretches up and pecks Geno’s cheek. “I’ll come find you for lunch okay?” He follows Dana towards his office. “So about expanding my internship programs…”

As the crowd disperses Geno narrows his eyes. “Keep your eyes to yourself,” he rumbles. Christian nods furiously. Geno stares for a few more beats then turns and drags away the CM. “Come, show’s over, get back to work lazy assholes.”

“Zhenya!” Sid’s head pokes out around Dana’s door. “Your interns were very nice and helpful, especially Christian.” He smiles. Christian tries to melt into his chair. “Lunch is on the big boss! Keep up the good work guys.” He retreats back into Dana’s office as an excited buzz fills the room.  

 _Hey universe,_ Christian thinks to himself as he looks at the models rendering on his screen. _Remember that good karma I racked up earlier? Can I cash it in on not getting killed for checking out my boss’ husband’s awesome ass? Thanks._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](https://rain-drop-sky.tumblr.com)!


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